United did this to me. I was at the gate and they told me it would be an hour late. So I went to the lounge. Half an hour later I come back, and the flight is gone. I was in the gate then their lounge and they never said anything about leaving on time after telling everyone they would be an hour late. I was ticked off. But there was another flight an hour later so I was not as mad as I could have been.
I was the only one that had not checked in on a United international flight. I was early but they decided to leave.
The put me up in a hotel and upgraded me to first class for the 13 hour flight. Not a bad deal.
Still, I can’t believe they just decided to leave early. It was not even a close call. I was there at least an hour and a half ahead of departure time.
United is funny that way. When I checked the monitor for a connecting flight, the flight status showed a two-hour delay. Luckily I double-checked 30 minutes later to find it was now ontime at a different gate.